Domestic Space, Modernity, and Identity: The Apartment in Mid-20th Century Turkey
Gurel, Meltem Havva
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/87357
Description
Title
Domestic Space, Modernity, and Identity: The Apartment in Mid-20th Century Turkey
Author(s)
Gurel, Meltem Havva
Issue Date
2007
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Panayiota I. Pyla
Department of Study
Architecture
Discipline
Architecture
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Architecture
Language
eng
Abstract
My analysis of ordinary spaces, such as maids' rooms, balconies, and bathrooms, constitutes a rich and unexplored domain that exposed the continuation and modernization of hierarchical class relations; it also highlights women's gendered identity in domestic space. Most significantly, the analysis demonstrates that the urban apartment, as a physical embodiment of contemporary beliefs, social norms, and shared values, occupied the confluence of cultural modernity and architectural Modernism. The apartment as social space revealed the desire of inhabitants, architects, and interior designers for change that was informed by political and cultural ideals of the West, reconfigured by postwar geopolitics. Residents and designers conceptualized the apartment as the epitome of modernity. However, they simultaneously embraced cultural priorities in creating domestic space for a consumer society shaped by political dynamics. Concepts of modern architecture were blended with traditional ones. In that sense, apartment interiors embodied a liminal space in which a desire to belong to a universal civilization coexisted with resistance and a return to tradition. Inside the unadorned facades, architectural Modernism was overcome by Turkish modernity. The spatial composition of apartments and their material culture represented the plurality, complexity, and ambiguity of Modern architecture.
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